Apple “Magic” mouse kicks the crap out of it’s predecessor

Absolutely everyone I have talked to hates Apple’s mighty-mouse. Even my friend with a Mac ditched his for, ironically, a Microsoft brand one. Paraphrasing Philip Defranco, “Apple could have released a block of wood and it would have been better then the Mighty Mouse.” But today, Apple showed us all that they can do better. What they have done is combined the iPod Touch’s multi-touch screen with a mouse, basically creating a mouse with no buttons, that supports gestures. Here’s what Apple has to say:

“The same Multi-Touch technology first introduced on the revolutionary iPhone comes to the mouse. It’s called Magic Mouse, and it’s the world’s first Multi-Touch mouse. Click anywhere, scroll in any direction, and swipe through images on its smooth, seamless top shell. It works wirelessly using Bluetooth, so you don’t have to worry about cables or adapters cluttering your workspace. And built-in software lets you configure Magic Mouse any way you want.”

I can really only see one problem: Bluetooth. I don’t mind syncing my phone to my computer via Bluetooth, but I have this thing against Bluetooth mice. My first wireless mouse was Bluetooth. Whenever I booted up I had to pick up my mouse, press connect, wait 30 seconds, wait for it to tell me the connection failed and try again three or four times until it connected. The next day I ditched it for a WiFi mouse (I don’t think they are actually called WiFi mice, but they opperate on a 2.4Ghz channel, so that’s what I’ll call them). Vista sp2 fixed the connectivity problems, but I still think WiFi is much more convenient. I boot up and it’s connected without me having to do anything. So I have a dongle sticking out of my laptop? Who cares? I don’t see why they couldn’t have made it WiFi.

On the flip-side, this thing is sleek, light and awesome looking. I assume it is as precise as my BlueTrack Microsoft mouse, if not even more. The multi-touch gestures are easy to understand and seem very natural. It seems a little flat-and-wide, but I guess that just take a little getting used to. It will run you down $69.00 at retail, but it’s free with a new iMac. A lot less than the $3600.00 I was predicting.

I really have to give Apple credit for this thing, thought I won’t buy it just yet, it doesn’t look perfected. Id doesn’t look very ergonomic. I also can’t imagine seeing it work on a carpet or my laptop keyboard like mine does. It seems really cool, but I can’t imagine it aiding my productivity at all. Knowing Apple, it won’t work with Windows anyways, just to slap Microsoft for the Zune HD compatibility problem.